Happily Ever After

One Month Anniversary

2010-04-05T09:24:00.002-04:00

So far, so good. Our first month of marriage has been wonderful, and we're looking forward to many more. We got back from St Lucia and had a few days in our house before one of our friends moved in, so we've had a good time with her. We keep making the joke that we got married and then immediatly had a child, so things are moving fast in our house!

Our wedding reception was a very nice event. We had a great turnout of our local friends and had some great food and fun together. It really was a great day and as soon as I can get some pictures I'll post them.

There's not much else to report. We're both putting a lot of effort into working on our house. The people who owned it previously pretty much trashed it, and little by little we've been trying to untrash it. We haven't been working fast enough though, so we've kicked it into high gear and hope to have a lot of improvements completed by the end of the summer. The biggest thing we want to do is replace the flooring on the main level, but that will have to wait a little longer due to budget constraints. But we'll get there and finally see our vision through!

It's Official!

2010-03-09T16:11:00.006-05:00

The entire St Lucia experience was wonderful. As much as we'd have loved to be surrounded by family and friends, it was also very nice to privately bask in our own love and commitment to each other.

The ceremony was simply a wonderful experience. I had reasonable expectations of the entire Sandals process, and while the ceremony was very effecient, I never once felt like we were part of an assembly line of weddings and being rushed through the event. The entire event lasted approximatly an hour, including our mini-reception following the ceremony. We were very fortunate to make some friends on our trip, friends asked if they could come to the ceremony to support us. It was very cool to have others share in our event, and if there is any regret for our choice of wedding venue, it is simply that our love and celebration wasn't witnessed by those close to our hearts.

Although my father wasn't there to walk me down the aisle, he was there in my heart. I walked down the aisle to Kenny G's "Wedding Song" which I selected because of my Dad's love of Mr. G, and although it was a rough subtitute, it was comforting. We were also able to call our parents following the ceremony so they could share in our excitement.

Our officiant was a peaceful soul. I'm blessed that Ms. Jackson shared her thoughts of marriage to open the ceremony, they were very beautiful and while they are all a blur now, they nearly brought me to tears as I looked at my groom. Mircea has never looked so handsome as he looked in my eyes and professed his love to me, and I've never felt so beautiful as when I did the same for him. It was just magical. I get goosebumps as I type this as it was just...unreal. Any fear that we harbored melted away as we held hands and professed our commitment to each other.

Following the pronouncement of husband and wife, we had some fun for the camera before attempting our cake cutting. I have never in my life struggled to cut a cake-we butchered the heck out of it but finally managed to scrape up some pieces to feed each other. We then shared our first dance to U2's "All I Want is You". The song was perfect and it was like a little dream sequence as I quietly sang the words in Mircea's ear as we danced.

Our "best man" Kenny gave an adorable speech about us, which was hilarious since we'd known him and his wife for two days, but it was so sweet and memorable. We were definitely a rag tag group of silly people. Kenny and Kristi (my Maid of Honor-by the way, Sandals gave them these roles since they were the signature witnesses to our marriage) got married 6 days before us, and our other guests, Kathy and Tony have been married many years and have children our age. We were so lucky to meet them on an excursion and I hope we keep in touch as they were truly special people.

All in all, we had a great time-beautiful ceremony, lovely pictures of the event, and a lifetime of happiness and memories to share.

Food Tasting

2010-02-13T21:22:00.003-05:00

Mircea and I decided to change our catering plans for our reception, so we went up to Famous Dave's in Waldorf to have a tasting. We met with their great catering director, Jackie, and she provided us with some yummy treats to taste. The food was incredible! Oh my gosh, I can see why they are so Famous. Fantastic. Mircea and I were both really impressed with all of the food, particularly the beef brisket and the corn bread. Man, that corn bread was fantastic. And, I even ate baked beans-up until now I've only ever had one or two bites of baked beans my whole life, but today I ate the entire little cup. Yum!

Here's some fuzzy camera phone pics of our yummy treats-thanks Jackie!

It's Almost Here...

2010-02-01T19:35:00.003-05:00

Mircea and I are getting so excited about this wedding, and I won't lie, super excited about the Honeymoon to St Lucia. We need a vacation so badly, our trip to Romania seems so long ago and work through the Holidays has been nothing short of annoying. We're keeping busy with reception planning activities and the associated stress. Mircea is super busy with school and I've been swamped at work so it leaves us very little time to relax...but relax we will in St Lucia.

32 days til MR & MRS!!!!

Bridal Shower

2010-01-24T10:18:00.006-05:00

This weekend I was lucky enough to have a Bridal Shower thrown by my future mother in law and attended by my fantastic girlfriends. It was a wonderful day and while I'm not used to having all eyes on me, they were all loving eyes and I felt so blessed to have such great friends in my life, both new and old. Here's some photos...

My wonderful future mother-in-law! Thank you for the party!

Wedding Song Part 2

2010-01-18T19:19:00.000-05:00

When Mircea and I get married in St Lucia, Sandals does a mini reception right after our super short ceremony and they asked me if I wanted to pick a wedding song. Wow, that's a lot of pressure. I love the song that Ellen and Portia did for their wedding (which would be extra cute since Mircea and I were E & P for Halloween) but I LOVE U2 and I really wanted to use a U2 song that I could get extra excited about every time I heard it played. And we'll still use the other song for the reception too, but there will be no dancing, just pictures. I need to shout-out to my friend Nikki for the suggestion. I knew she would know the perfect U2 song to use as she's an even bigger fan than I am.

The video isn't the greatest, but I wanted to post something about the song because I'm really excited about using it-it seems more "us" than the other song did. Plus, Bono dedicated it to his wife in the video, and that's just cool.

The "Joy" of Invitations

2010-01-15T19:10:00.003-05:00

I started working on the invitations this evening, and frankly, I thought my blood pressure would go through the roof. I typed out the addresses to be merged onto the labels THREE times...on two different computers. By the time I finally got the labels working I looked at the labels I'd purchased and realized that they were for laser printers. Well isn't that fancy? I jammed them into my inkjet printer, hoping that God was maybe looking down on me and knew that I needed them to work. He wasn't. They smeared all over the place and I felt myself slowly dying inside. So I won't get the labels until at least tomorrow (I'm making a special trip to the office to print them) which means I couldn't really start most of the invitations. Mircea decided that he wanted to hand deliver the invitations to his co-workers and friends so I addressed those. After about two invitations I realized that I didn't know the names of any of his co-workers' wives...and neither did he. Mircea might have the world's worst memory, but let me just say-that is embarassing. One of the invitations says "Steve & Lovely Wife". No, I'm not kidding. Yes, I'm leaving it that way. And yes, I'm sorry.

65 Days to Go!

2009-12-30T10:42:00.003-05:00

Wow, I looked at the calendar today and realized that we're super close to being Mr & Mrs! And it's only 60 days until we leave for St Lucia so I'm basically going on an all water diet for the next two months. I'm only slightly kidding!

Most of the stuff is done for the event, just one final payment next week and lots of exercise to look better in my bathing suits! I think we're both really excited about the vacation aspect of things as well as the wedding, but it will be nice to just relax. While our trip to Romania was super fun, it was really all about R&R , we traveled around the country a lot and took in a lot of sites. The honeymoon will be much more low key. And a lot warmer!

The invitations have arrived and I'm busily addressing them in my free time. The invitations are only for the reception and I want to qualify that if you don't receive an invitation to the reception, it's not because we don't love you. In fact, it's because we DO love you and don't want you traveling all the way to Maryland simply to enjoy a pork BBQ and a couple of hours sharing us with other people. I'm selfish, but I want to spend quality time with those that are far away and hopefully you'll just want to visit any other time...I'll even make you BBQ if you want!

Say "yes" to the Dress

2009-12-07T20:22:00.003-05:00

One of the most fretful decisions for a Bride for her wedding day is the bridal gown. There are so many choices in so many different price points, and it can be dizzying. Many people go to David's Bridal, many people choose not to simply because so many others do. I am not one of those people. I really like David's Bridal and find that they have a great selection and very good quality for the price.

The wedding dress I found was actually an online purchase. I'd found it on the first day I looked at dresses (the day we got engaged!) but figured I'd order it in the fall or winter. I went back to the site to look at it after we got back from Romania and it was totally sold out. I was so disappointed, but not one to give up, I started looking for other options. Alas, I didn't find anything I liked, but was going to make an appointment to go up to Waldorf with my girlfriends and make a day out of looking for the dress. While logging on to the website I found that they had two sizes of my dress available. I clicked in the size closest to mine and immediatly purchased the item. I was so nervous that it was some sort of trick. I went back in and it was the ONLY one that they'd had in that size so I felt really lucky. It actually got shipped to the house 3 days after I bought it and I tried it on this weekend with my friends in tow. It is beautiful and I'm so happy with it...and it was a fantastic deal. I paid $150 for the dress. I only say it because the original price on it was $400 and frankly I love a bargain. It's gorgeous, I look fantastic and it fits perfectly. Having said that, I'd still love to lose a little more weight for the wedding I figure I saved enough money to pay for the tailoring. Hopefully. And no, I'm not sharing pictures here, but I can't wait for everyone to see the photos from St. Lucia.

Wedding Registry

2009-11-30T15:01:00.000-05:00

Kate and Mircea are registered at the following locations:

The Wedding is Booked!

2009-10-22T15:22:00.002-04:00

I talked to Sandals today and our wedding is officially booked. Mircea and I will be getting married on March 5, 2010 at eleven o'clock in the morning. When I called Mircea to ask him what time, he jokingly said "let's get it over with, 11 am". But I have to agree-I'll be fretting all morning and it will be great to have it behind us and be Mr. and Mrs.!

Perfect Wedding Song

2009-09-09T14:00:00.001-04:00

While Mircea and I won't really be having a "first dance" as a married couple, simply because I can't see putting him through that, I've selected one of the songs for the montage of pictures from the wedding and honeymoon to play at our reception.

The song is called Today, by Joshua Radin, and I first heard it when Ellen Degeneres played a montage of photos from her wedding to Portia de Rossi. It really is a beautiful, simple song, and I think it's just a perfect wedding song. I've posted the link to the video, for some reason blogger isn't accepting youTube videos anymore. Click here for the song.

**note the subtitles. I'm not sure which Asian language they are, but I think it's funny that I couldn't find the U.S. version of this video.

Can You Do Me a Favor?

2009-09-02T13:14:00.000-04:00

Wedding favors are so much fun, yet can be a total pain in the butt to try and figure out. There are so many cute things, but I’m all about utility and don’t want to buy things that are just going to get pitched in the trash on the way out. (Do you want to see me cry? I’ll do it.) I’m trying to come up with some ideas that people will enjoy and get some use out of. Personalized M&Ms seem to work for me (what has more utility than chocolate?) as well as some sort of plantable item. It is fun to look at the stuff, and the beachy theme items are really cool on the Oriental Trading Company site. I’ve also been toying with a betta fish as a center piece idea...I don’t think Peta will be mad at me for that, right? Does anyone have any suggestions or a good place to purchase wedding favors?

Comments are Welcome!

2009-08-28T13:30:00.002-04:00

A friend notified me that I had accidently turned off comments on this blog. You're more than welcome to comment-in fact we welcome it!

We're counting down the days until our trip to his native Romania. I think we'll have a really good time and I'm looking forward to meeting his family (other than his mother, who we're fortunate enough to have just one city away from our home) and learning more about the country he grew up in.

Hai Romania!

MMMMMMmmmmm Cake

2009-08-21T12:57:00.000-04:00

I love cake in general, so loving wedding cake is perfectly natural and expected. The beautiful designs of wedding cakes thrill me to death, and of course I also love the disasters that can be found on Cake Wrecks. But I don’t want a wreck. I want something cool…but it turns out all the “cool” stuff I like is made with fondant and apparently fondant is both expensive and non-tasty. It is so pretty though and the majority of the cakes I love involve fondant of some sort, so I'll have to talk the "cake lady" into doing something like this but without fondant. Here are some of my favorites…

Despite these flowery cakes I’ve shown here, there’s also a part of me that really wants a Star Trek cake. Yeah, that’s right, we are both into Star Trek, particularly Next Generation, and I thought it would be cute to incorporate that into the reception…oh yeah, and it would also be really nerdy, so we’re probably not going to do it.

I found a nice lady at work that makes cakes and they are waaaay cheaper than some of the area competition (but doesn't like fondant) so when we get closer we’ll decide on the style and then its good eats for all!

Notes on Wedding Planning

2009-08-11T11:35:00.000-04:00

I am really enjoying planning this wedding, mostly because it is so easy...so far. I actually haven't booked the wedding yet through Sandals as our travel agent told us we didn't have to do it right away and frankly, with our upcoming trip to Romania I didn't want to think about the actual wedding planning until we returned. The trip is booked for Sandals, but the actual event hasn't been finalized, so that will be a future blog topic.

The reception planning has been fun. I've been getting some ideas for what can go with our theme (the beach!) and finding nice trinkets on the web for our guests. Mircea and I are such low maintenance people that the reception will be extremely low key and most likely fairly casual. I certainly don't intend on wearing my wedding dress, but we'll see if I'm feeling froggy that day. I'm just hoping the weather will be nice in late March (it was gorgeous this past year as we had Mircea's mom Rodica's birthday party outside) and we can enjoy time out on the deck of the community center and play some games outside. We just want our friends and family to have a good time and see how much fun we have together. I do feel bad as I really can't expect out of town guests to visit for a reception when they won't even get to witness the wedding. We'll show wedding pictures and share some stories, but I'm not sure that my relatives will want to make the 10 hour trek for a few hours of fun and merriment. I'll know they are there in spirit. I just hate asking people for things like "drop everything and travel this far to see me for an afternoon".

So that's that. We're at the beginning of this, making some plans, trying to figure out what kind of food we'll serve, and the cake. That will be a post in itself!

The Reception

2009-08-11T09:21:00.002-04:00

On March 27, 2010 at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the new Mr. and Mrs. will host a reception at the Chesapeake Ranch Community Center for their friends and family.

The attire for the event is akin to "business casual"-there is no need to dress up, but jeans might be a little out of place as we'll be taking photos. Your own discretion is all you need-but there will be cameras all around!!

The Wedding

2009-08-11T09:17:00.000-04:00

On March 5, 2010, Kate and Mircea will say their vows in St. Lucia at the Sandals Halcyon resort. As their parents were unable to attend the ceremony, they made the decision to have a private wedding at the beach and return home to have a celebration of their marriage.

The Proposal

2009-08-11T09:02:00.000-04:00

On July 3, 2009, Mircea took Kate out on the boat to visit St. Clements Island, one of the couple’s favorite places to visit. After a day of fun in the sun, Kate asked if Mircea was ready to head back. He said “I have one last thing”, and pulled a ring out of his pocket and proposed. Not one who is accustomed to being surprised, Kate stared in shock and finally managed to eek out a “yes”.

About the Couple

2009-08-11T08:55:00.000-04:00

Kate and Mircea live in Lusby, Maryland, with their 3 sweet cats, Yukon, Lily and Fern. They spend their weekends boating on the Chesapeake Bay and enjoying the beautiful Southern Maryland scenery. They both thoroughly enjoy football, and are looking forward to their first year with NFL Sunday ticket so they can watch the Indianapolis Colts (Kate) and Philadelphia Eagles (Mircea) slaughter the competition.

Kate works for the Navy supporting the Fire Scout UAV and spends her free time reading, playing the Sims 3, and attempting to return to running after knee surgery. She’s also spending her free time learning Romanian for a September 2009 trip to Mircea’s hometown.

Mircea works for Dominion, a natural gas plant in the area. He spends his free time playing Call of Duty, watching classic football on the NFL network, and working on the boat.

How They Met

2009-08-11T08:53:00.000-04:00

Though they’ll probably want to tell their children otherwise, Kate and Mircea met at a local bar, the Dew Drop, and the rest is history. They managed to continue their relationship when Kate moved to San Diego for 3 months shortly after they met. With a couple of visits and numerous phone calls, they stayed in touch and fell in love from across the country. After returning to Maryland, Kate and Mircea moved in together and bought their first home in October of 2008.